Real Illusions

Scott Minar*

I wanted to see Troy up close.

So I got out my microscope,

The one I had years ago as a boy,

I wound the dial

Round till sand and sky 

Zoomed in. I saw it there

In the sun like a 3-D

Beach towel and floated down

To get into it.

I was aware of my other self

Back home in my laboratory

And kicked the box at my feet

To be sure. But there was no leaving

That place. I had to be in two

Stories at once, this world and that—

Like Dante on the page

Watching Dante with his pen.

It was a paradox I knew

From experience, to be forced outside myself

By circumstances I couldn’t control.

In a kind of enjambment then

I lived my life—sometimes heroically;

sometimes coward, looter, thief.

The line moving down

A page like Sisyphus and his rock.

--poet and singer from USA.